Within the last several years, wireless networking has become increasingly popular. Wireless networking provides numerous benefits, both in public settings and within a closed home or office network. However, installing and configuring wireless network devices requires some understanding of the configuration parameters of the various network protocols. Many users, particularly home and small office users, lack the level of knowledge necessary to install and configure wireless network devices, and are thus unable to take advantage of the benefits of wireless networking.
An even greater problem lies in a lack of security of wireless networks. Despite the fact that fairly robust security algorithms have been developed, often these algorithms are not implemented. Again, this problem is especially acute with respect to home and small office users, who may be relatively unsophisticated with respect to wireless networking security protocols and lack the resources to employ more highly trained network administrators or information technology support staff. Contributing to the problem is the fact that most wireless device manufacturers ship their devices with such security features disabled. As a result, many users never enable the security features, and many wireless networks are left unsecured.
Still another problem is the use of primitive devices that lack user interfaces sophisticated enough to properly configure wireless network. One example of such a device might be a remote control for controlling the playback of audio and/or video media using a computer. Although prior art devices to do so have required additional interfaces, e.g., infrared transceivers, to be added to the computer system, it would be advantageous to provide a remote control that interfaced with a preexisting interface of the computer, e.g., the wireless network interface. However, typical remote controls lack user interfaces of sufficient sophistication to configure a wireless network connection.
Therefore, what is needed in the art is a system for simplifying the configuration of wireless network devices and minimizing the amount of traditional user interface required to do so, while still permitting users to employ robust authentication and encryption algorithms.